ART 4
2-DAY 10 December |
BIRTH:
1867 ROUSSEL — BAPTISM: 1610 VAN OSTADE |
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Died on 10 December 1761: Johann
Georg Platzer (or Plazer), Austrian painter and draftsman
born on 25 (24?) June 1704. — He came from a family of painters in South Tyrol, studying first with his stepfather Josef Anton Kessler [–1721] and then with his uncle Christoph Platzer, court painter in Passau. In 1724 he painted an altarpiece for the church of Saint Helena in Deutschnofen. Probably after 1726 he went to Vienna, where he enrolled at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste and became a friend of Franz Christoph Janneck. Perhaps because of a stroke that impeded his work, he returned to Saint Michael in Eppan by 1755. Platzer produced a great number of small paintings, mostly on copper. He was the most important master of the conversation piece in 18th-century Austria, and his cultivated embourgeoisé public was fascinated by the virtuoso manner, lively colors and innumerable details of his compositions. According to the principles of decorum, he chose his models and style to suit the subject-matter: for histories and allegories he took his models from antiquity, the Renaissance and Italian and Flemish Baroque art, as in Samson’s Revenge. In his genre scenes and especially his conversation pieces, influences of the French Rococo and the Netherlandish cabinet painters are evident, while in his scenes of artists’ studios, such as Sculptor’s Workshop, his academic knowledge is revealed. The repeated use of architectural motifs in his work is derived from northern Italian quadratura painting. Although his work is eclectic, it has a characteristic personal touch that distinguishes it from the comparable, though calmer and less detailed work of Janneck. LINKS — The Pleasures of the Seasons: Autumn (main detail) (877x1188pix, 134kb) _ ZOOM to full picture (1730, 38x55cm; 1354x2000pix, 318kb) — The Pleasures of the Seasons: Winter (main detail) (865x1230pix, 128kb) _ ZOOM to full picture (1730, 38x55cm; 1363x2000pix, 276kb) — The Pleasures of the Seasons: Summer (main detail) (862x1218pix, 119kb) _ ZOOM to full picture (1730, 38x55cm; 1359x2000pix, 268kb) — Latona Turning the Lycian Peasants into Frogs (1730, 21x30cm; 842x1166pix, 115kb) |
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Born on 10 December 1867: Ker~Xavier Roussel,
French Nabi
painter, printmaker, and decorative artist, who died on 06 June 1944 (D-Day).
He was the brother-in-law of Edouard
Vuillard. {Etait-il un descendant de Guillaume Cadet
Roussel [30 Apr 1743 26 Jan 1807]? Ah ! Ah ! Ah oui, vraiment?
- En tout cas ce n'est pas lui, mais Benoit A. Côté qui,
en 1996, a peint les 3 maisons de Cadet Roussel.} |
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Died on 10 December: 1928 Charles
Rennie Mackintosh, Scottish Art Nouveau designer born on
07 June 1868. Born in Glasgow, the son of a police superintendent, Mackintosh is the most famous of the Glasgow Style designers and has become something of a cult figure of international importance. He studied at the Glasgow School of Art while being apprenticed to the architect John Hutchinson, transferring to the firm of Honeyman and Keppie in 1889. In 1891 a travelling scholarship enabled him to visit Italy, France and Belgium, and in 1902 he began to paint a series of mystical watercolors. Meanwhile his furniture designs were establishing a repertoire of forms which became the hallmarks of the Glasgow Style and his reputation as an architect was confirmed by his famous designs for Glasgow School of Art (1897-1909). In 1900 he married Margaret MacDonald, who collaborated with him closely and encouraged his painting. Although his work was highly acclaimed abroad, Glasgow proved increasingly restrictive, and in 1914 he left to concentrate on painting in watercolors. He lived in Chelsea until 1923 and thereafter in France. LINKS The Harvest Moon (1892) _ Mackintosh was known as a watercolorist as well as an architect and designer. Harvest Moon gives an idea of the mystery and lyricism that characterized the Glasgow style, and the connection to the land of faerie that was part of its inspiration. The Scottish Musical Review (1896) _ Mackintosh's poster shows the angularity and geometry that distinguished the Glasgow style in poster art from its French counterparts, such as Toulouse-Lautrec. An elongated, possibly winged figure is framed by an abstract halo and supports birds and abstract flowers. The ambiguous subject of this decorative, linear design is typical of the Glasgow artists. In Fairyland (1897, 37x18cm) Fairies (1898) The Wassail (1900, 32x68cm) Part Seen, Part Imagined (1896) The Descent of Night (1894) |
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Baptized as an infant on 10 December
1610: Adriaen van Ostade, Dutch painter,
draftsman, and engraver who died on 27 April 1685. |
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Died on 10 December 1475: Paolo
Uccello di Dono, Italian painter born in 1397.
[uccel di bosco?] LINKS Five Portraits (1450, 43x210cm) _ This painting, attributed to Paolo Uccello, portrays five famous men, Giotto (representing painting), Uccello (representing the principles of perspective and animal painting), Donatello (representing sculpture), Manetti (representing mathematics), and Brunelleschi (representing architecture). _ detail _ This detail is supposed to be a self-portrait of Uccello. The Battle of San Romano [ Left _ Center _ Right _ Panel] _ The three paintings of the Battle of San Romano are universally attributed to Paolo Uccello. The three scenes are: Niccolò da Tolentino Leads the Florentine Troops, London, National Gallery; Bernardino della Ciarda Thrown Off His Horse, Florence, Uffizi; Micheletto da Cotignola Engages in Battle, Paris, Louvre. Together with the stories from the life of Noah these are undoubtedly Uccello's most famous works. In all three panels the battle scene is interpreted in terms of a chaotic mêlée of horsemen, lances and horses in a desperate struggle, portrayed through an endless series of superimposed and intersecting perspective planes. As in the stories from the life of Noah in Santa Maria Novella, here too the movement which should animate the scenes appears to be frozen, as it were, by the isolation of the individual details, all realistically portrayed. See, for instance, the elaborate heavy armour, the leather saddles, the gilded studs, the horses' shiny coats, and of course the splendid "mazzocchi', the huge multifaceted headgear that Uccello often included in his pictures due to the specific difficulty of painting it in proper perspective. The three panels commemorate the celebrated Battle of San Romano in which the Florentines, under the leadership of Niccolò da Tolentino, defeated the Sienese led by Bernardino della Ciarda. They were intended as decoration for the large hall on the ground floor of the Medici Palace, called Lorenzo's room. The three incidents from the Battle of San Romano shown are: Left: Niccolò da Tolentino Leads the Florentine Troops _ detail Center: Bernardino della Ciarda Thrown Off His Horse _ This is the central panel of the three paintings representing the battle won by Florence against Siena allied with Visconti, the ruling family of Milan. It took place on June 1st 1432 in San Romano, half way between Florence and Pisa. The picture shows the conclusive combat between the captains of the two armies: Niccolò da Tolentino unseating Bernardino della Ciarda. Uccello's obsession with displaying his mastery of perspective (such as the long white and red lances or the exceptional horses that have rolled over on the ground) and the dramatic nature of the clash between the knights combine with his almost magical story telling. This is underpinned by the use of unreal colors and light as if describing some fabulous tale of chivalrous adventure. _ detail 1 _ detail 2 _ Particularly lovely are the background landscapes, especially in this panel, with scenes of grape harvesting and hunting. _ detail 3 Right : Micheletto da Cotignola Engages in Battle _ In this panel there is a formal subtext created by strong decorative elements, such as the tights of contrasting colors worm by the soldiers on the left, or the arrangement of the lances, which form a series of patterns and movements that echo the horses and their riders. As could be expected, foreshortening and perspective are devices favored by the artist. The landscape has been sacrificed to the action of the figures. _ detail |